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Memory of Light was the intended title of the final book of the fantasy series The Wheel of Time, written by American author Robert Jordan.

It was incomplete as of the time of Jordan's death on September 16, 2007 from cardiac amyloidosis; his widow Harriet McDougal and publisher Tom Doherty chose to publish the book posthumously. Tor Books announced that Brandon Sanderson had been chosen to finish writing the book. Though originally intended by Jordan to be a single volume, it was split into three volumes when it was believed a single volume would be too large to print. The first volume is titled The Gathering Storm, and is set for publication on November 3, 2009. The volumes as a whole will still be titled A Memory of Light.


Plot

No details concerning the plot were released. The series' storyline has been leading up to the "Last Battle" (Tarmon Gai'don); a fight between the forces of Light and Shadow. According to prophecy in the series the protagonist Rand al'Thor, as the Dragon Reborn, will "fight the [battle]", and must be present for the forces of Light to have a chance at winning. This battle will feature prominently in the final book. Brandon Sanderson has signed a non-disclosure agreement forbidding him from commenting on the plot.




Brandon Sanderson was devastated by the news of Jordan's death; he is a fan of the series and he cites Jordan as an inspiration. He is known for the novel Elantris and the Mistborn series. He did not want to imitate Jordan's style as he felt it would "turn into parody."

Sanderson said in an interview with Sci Fi Wire that it was a great honor to be given the chance to complete the series but stated "To be perfectly honest, I can't fill [Jordan's] shoes." Some parts of the book were nearly finished by Jordan, while others have only a couple of paragraphs to describe a twenty page scene, but he describes Jordan's notes as "amazing."Through February 2008 Sanderson reread the entire series, posting his impressions of each book on his blog.

It was confirmed at a panel at the 2008 World Science Fiction Convention that Jordan had completed 50,000 words of the book before he died, with the largest sections of complete text being the prologue and the end. Whilst Sanderson was working to a target of 400,000 words by the end of December 2008 early in his work on the final book, Sanderson now estimates the final length of A Memory of Light to be at least 700,000 words. It is likely that Jordan's widow and editor, Harriet McDougal, will contribute some kind of foreword to the final volume.

Information emerged on the Internet pertaining to the book, with a draft cover suggesting it was to be split into volumes. On March 30, 2009 Tor Books confirmed A Memory of Light was to be split into three volumes the first of which, The Gathering Storm, will be released on November 3, 2009. The other as of yet unnamed volumes are planned to be released over a period of two years.

Although Jordan himself had promised only a single book, according to Sanderson neither Jordan's widow nor Doherty believed he could achieve this. Sanderson claimed that he could not do the story and characters justice with a single volume, so a split was inevitable. The decision was made to split the final book into three separate volumes, rather than two, so that a reasonably sized and unfractured volume could be released at the promised November 2009 date.Sanderson has stated that had the book remained as a single volume, it would not have been able to be released before November 2011, and likely would have been so large as to be unpublishable.
The first volume was originally intended to be titled A Memory of Light: Gathering Clouds. The other volumes had working subtitles of Shifting Winds and Tarmon Gai'don for the second and third installments respectively. At the point the title A Memory of Light was dropped because book stores were worried it would be confusing, Sanderson decided the subtitle Gathering Clouds was "too generic, too basic" to be used as a title on its own. McDougal decided upon The Gathering Storm based on suggestions from Doherty. Sanderson states he considers the name to be "one of the more bland Wheel of Time titles." The book as a whole will still be titled A Memory of Light.